Pulitzer finalist: Editorials still relevant

The nominees for editorial writing were left empty-handed after the Pulitzer announcement on Monday, but one finalist says the snub doesn’t mean newspaper opinion pages are in decline.

Since publisher Joseph Pulitzer established the award in 1917, the board has voted nine times not to issue an award in editorial writing. And Tim Nickens — editorials editor at the Tampa Bay Times and one of the 2012 finalists in the category — said Tuesday he sees this year’s decision as no slight on the art of editorial writing.

Text Size

-

+

reset

“I actually think that they’re at least as important or relevant as they’ve always been,” Nickens said. “There are so many voices now and it’s so cluttered with blogs and everything that it’s important to have an institutional voice that is respected in the community and is going to be here tomorrow and the next year, and not going to disappear tomorrow. You know who it is. You know what the institution stands for.”

“It’s not some person sitting by themselves in their pajamas in the bedroom,” he added.

While some may see the decision not to give out an award as a comment on the state of editorial writing in the digital age, Nickens said there’s a place for both the individual personalities that dominate the current world of commentary and the institutional voice of newspapers at the state and local level.

“With so many voices now it’s important to have one with credibility that’s always going to be there — whether you agree with it or not,” he said.

The Pulitzer committee recognized Nickens — along with colleagues Joni James, John Hill and Robyn Blumner — “for editorials that examined the policies of a new, inexperienced governor and their impact on the state, using techniques that stretched the typical editorial format and caused the governor to mend some of his ways.” In addition to the Tampa Bay Times, Bloomberg News and the Burlington Free Press were listed as finalists in the category. None of the entries earned a majority vote of the board, however, so no Pulitzer was awarded.

“It’s nice to be recognized as a finalist, and this is not the first time this has happened,” Nickens said. “You’ve got to accept it as their best judgment. I respect all those journalists on the board.”

“Everything doesn’t have to be 20 inches of nothing but type. That’s not going to be the most effective way to get your message across in every case,” he said. “I thought our entry was perhaps on a traditional subject as it dealt with the governor, but it used not entirely conventional means — and I’m thinking maybe that’s why it caught the attention of the jury.”

Readers' Comments (3)

"“With so many voices now it’s important to have one with credibility that’s always going to be there — whether you agree with it or not,” he said."

And there is the problem. No credibility in print media or any of the electronic media. Only "political correctness" is disseminated in the media of today other than the internet which is full of information but the user must sift through it to determine what is true or just PC. The Walter Winchels of the world are gone replaced by teleprompter readers or print media that has a bias against information that is not slanted to their PC point of view. Sad state for journalists in this country as there are practically non left.